March 21, 1994
12:00 AM (EST)

News Release Number: STScI-1994-15

Galaxy Drift Challenges Ideas About Universe's Evolution

March 21, 1994: Two astronomers have discovered that our own Milky Way galaxy and most of its
neighboring galaxies, contained within a huge volume of the universe, one billion light-years
in diameter, are drifting with respect to the more distant universe. This startling result may
imply that the universe is "lumpier" on a much larger scale than can be readily explained by
any current theory. "The new observations thus strongly challenge our understanding of how
the universe evolved," says Dr. Tod Lauer of the National Optical Astronomy Observatories
(NOAO).